Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

In the weeks that followed I felt trapped in a nightmare. My unhappiness in Gala compounded now by the fractious end of my relationship with Seonag. Who was still just across the hall, who still attended the same lectures, who was still Miss Personality superplus in a crowd at the union. But behind the face that she wore for the world I could see her pain. The tears of the clown behind the mask. We avoided each other like the plague.

Then, mid-December, entirely out of the blue, I received a letter from Ruairidh. He had put his name and a return address on the back of the envelope. Some student accommodation in Aberdeen. It was a Saturday morning, and I sat in my cell and tore it open with trembling fingers. Inside was a printed card. An invitation to the student Christmas dance at Aberdeen University. Clipped to it was a return air ticket from Edinburgh to Aberdeen in my name. Not a cheap purchase for someone on a student grant. I turned over the card, and saw that he had handwritten on the back of it, Saving the last dance for you . Beneath it a phone number.

It took me all of half a second to decide that I was going. I ran along the corridor to the pay phones and dialled the number on the back of the card. The phone rang several times at the other end before someone picked it up, and a woman’s voice said, ‘Yes?’ It seemed very abrupt and I was momentarily taken aback.

‘Can I speak to Ruairidh Macfarlane, please.’ I heard the receiver being set down and then the same voice calling off into the distance.

‘Ruairidh... Phone!’

‘Coming,’ even more distantly, then hurried feet on stairs. When he picked up the phone and said, ‘Hello?’ I very nearly hung up. I’m not sure why. Except that I knew this was very possibly a watershed in my life. One of those crossroads you arrive at without any certainty of which road you are going to follow, always with the possibility in your mind that you could just turn around and walk back to the safety of everything you have known up until then.

I said, ‘It’s Niamh.’ I could almost hear him hold his breath at the other end.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ I closed my eyes and took the plunge. ‘I got your letter.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll be on the flight.’

A long silence, then, ‘I’ll meet you at the airport.’

‘Okay... See you then, then.’

‘Yes.’

A hesitation. What else to say? Nothing. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I hung up and stood breathing rapidly. The butterflies were back. And the palpitations. All the things I had felt during those weeks at Linshader when Ruairidh and I were together. I hurried back along the hall to my room and stood by the window, gazing out at the distant bus stop where I would board the bus to Edinburgh to catch my flight to Aberdeen in just ten days’ time. I would rearrange my transport home for Christmas from there. Bus from Aberdeen to Inverness. Then Inverness to Ullapool. And the Suilven back across the Minch. I had not felt this good in months. Which is when I realized that I had left the letter with the ticket and invitation on the table beside the phones. I turned to go back and get them but was stopped in my tracks by a knock at the door.

It swung open and Seonag stood there, with the letter and ticket and invitation in her hand. She held them out and said, ‘You left these by the phone.’

I stepped forward to take them. ‘Thanks.’

She shrugged, and the sadness in her face in that moment very nearly broke my heart. She said, with a tiny smile, ‘Guess I lose.’

As it happened, I never did go home for Christmas that year. Ruairidh met me off the plane at Aberdeen, and he saved not only the last dance for me, but every other dance that night. We went back to his digs and made love in his room, trying hard not to make a noise and disturb the other students, or his landlady. We spent half the night cooried up together beneath the duvet, stifling laughter and whispering conversations. I told him, as if he hadn’t heard it before, how unhappy I was at Galashiels. And he was shocked to hear about Seonag’s unexpected arrival, and how that had only compounded my misery. I didn’t tell him then, or ever, about what had actually transpired between us, only that the dissolution of our friendship seemed final, and that I didn’t see any way I could go back to Gala.

He said, ‘You know, I’ve heard that the RGU Dough School at Kepplestone runs a really good course in home economics.’ He shrugged as if it were just a casual or throwaway thought when he added, ‘If you could get in there for the second term, then we could be in Aberdeen together.’ He grinned. ‘And miles away from Seonag.’

I phoned and went to Kepplestone for an interview the next day. It was my good fortune that someone else was dropping out, and they were happy for me to step in and fill her place. And so Ruairidh and I stayed in Aberdeen all across the festive season. I remember it as probably the happiest Christmas of my life.

When term resumed I took up my new place at the Aberdeen Dough School and completed my degree over the next year and a half.

After graduating I surprised even myself by returning to Gala to do a Master’s in Clothing Management. Just six months at the college, and then six months on release at Mackays in Paisley, my first real job in a fashion buying office, while I researched and wrote my dissertation on the Harris Tweed industry and its marketing.

By the time I got back to Gala Seonag was long gone. She had abandoned her flirtation with the textile and clothing industry, and left to take a course in business and computer studies at Manchester, which I discovered later just happened to be Jane’s home town.

Braque sat at a table in the window, looking out over the inner harbour. Most of the fishing boats appeared to have gone, leaving only the pleasure boats and a few rusting hulks lined up along the quayside and the pontoons. The sky was broken, white clouds scudding across areas of blue, as if competing with each other to hide the sun, chasing their own shadows across the water.

She had not slept well, and was worried because she had still been unable to raise her ex on the phone. He had changed his mobile number after the split and all she had was his home number. Someone should have been there, even if it was only Lise. But, then, she probably wouldn’t have wanted to lift the phone when she saw who was calling. All the same, Gilles should have responded by now. She had left several messages. All she could think was that he had taken the girls somewhere for a treat. Maybe stayed overnight. But there was school this morning... She breathed in deeply and pressed her palms flat on the pristine white linen tablecloth. She did not want to let any other thoughts in. As Gilles had always been in the habit of telling her, she had a vivid imagination.

‘Bonjour, Ma’am. Penny for them.’

She turned to find George Gunn standing by her table. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Penny for your thoughts. It’s an English idiom,’ he said, before realizing she might not understand what an idiom was. ‘A saying. It just means I was wondering what you were thinking.’

She forced a smile. ‘Dark thoughts.’ And waved to the chair opposite. ‘Join me?’

Gunn grinned. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Ma’am.’

‘Sylvie,’ she corrected him again.

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said, and it was clear he had no intention of ever calling her by her name.

An elderly waitress in a black skirt and blouse and white apron asked if he would like toast.

‘Yes, please.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘And a coffee.’

They indulged in polite conversation about how well each had slept. She lied, and wondered if he had, too. Then they talked about the weather, and he elevated what she had taken to be an unpromising start to the day, to being ‘grand’. His toast arrived and she watched as he spread it with slabs of quickly melting butter, before slathering it with thick-cut marmalade, and wolfing it down between large gulps of coffee sweetened with two spoons of sugar.